Alice Dudley, Duchess of Dudley

In 1605, after giving birth to seven daughters, she was abandoned by her husband, who went into exile in Tuscany, remarried, and eventually sold his English estates.

In 1622 Charles obtained a special act of parliament to enable Alice Dudley "to alien her estate from her children as a feme sole", so that she could then sell her interest in the properties for £4,000, plus further payments to be made in later years.

In the King's grant to Dudley of the new title and precedency, with the additional precedency of the children of a duke, given to her daughters, at Oxford in the midst of the turmoil of the First English Civil War, it declared[4] And whereas, our father not knowing the truth of the lawful birth of the said Sir Robert (as we piously believe) granted away the titles of the said earldom to others ... and holding ourselves in honour and conscience obliged to make reparation; and also the said great estate which the Lady Alice had in Kenilworth, and sold at our desire to us at a very great undervalue... we do... give and grant unto the said Lady Alice Dudley the title of Duchess of Dudley for life.

[5] After its medieval church had fallen into decay, a fine new Gothic building was built in brick between 1623 and 1630, mostly paid for by the future Duchess.

[3] In her will, she left an endowment to generate annually "the sum of One hundred pounds for ever, for the redemption of poor English captives taken by the Turks", and King Charles II instructed Sir Orlando Bridgeman, the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, to take steps to give effect to the bequest.